I hate this guy. Jack Thompson is a idiot and doesnt even think about but this is the man (A famous and respected movie critic)who's stopping the games from being considered true art. He must be blind for not seeing art in Okami, MGS and Final Fantasy.
His job is at stake(this guy is a movie Critic NOT a game Critic)Games like MGS and FF are games that attract a ceratin amount of people.Although most games engenders hate and violence.Ebert is not in to blood and gore.FF has no blood but it still has violence.and MGS implements politicks.
I don't know what he means by art, but last i heard how a game is builtup...look at god of war..epic story,design,sets.But his critiq is something of a dumb thing though, its like rating a movie before it comes out or if you've seen the trailer. The defence about ''play my games'' is a stupid thing, this comes from the guy who likes movies because it must bore us to death instead of entertaining us.
Man - Ebert is really going down hill now that he's passed into irrelevance. Two Thumbs Up used to mean something, but that was a long time ago now. He's the definition of bitterness now.
This guy usually thinks great movies suck, so it's no surprise to me that he hates on video games, too. Not only can games be "high" art, games can be "high" art on so many levels! From level design to the soundtrack, how can the summation of so many artist elements not equal a work of interactive art? Now, I realize that some games are complete garbage as well, but anyone who plays Okami or Metal Gear Solid 2 and tells me "games aren't art" is blind, deaf, and dumb. Word?
Video games are a form of art, it's actually a new direction of art, interactivity. I'm an artist and I plan on using my talent in art to one day make video games. This movie critic is in no position to criticize video games by saying they are not a form of art.
Go easy on him. He's obviously new to this if the only game he seems to know of is Clive Barker's Undying.. rofl.. n00b. I say, lock him in a cell and FORCE him to experience MGS, FF, and every other great game out there. The whole article sounded like him talking out of his ass, trying to prove he's something. Of course he wouldn't consider video games as art.. HE'S NEVER PLAYED ONE.
He skips over a lot of issues that could've been addressed, which really invalidates his whole argument. This is clearly him defending his viewpoint, which is totally acceptable, but ultimately fruitless as that is all he does. At the same time, Barker's argument wasn't that strong either, so of course nothing positive would come of it.
But, yeah, Ebert comes off as a condescending asshole here.
He's just angry because the film and movie industry is declining while the game industry is increasing and taking a lot of the potential, it's also saturating the movie industry with piles of steaming sh!t.
I mean look at peter jackson, clive barker, and the plethora of holly wood voice actors that are jumping on board for games. While we give back films by the likes of Uwe Boll or w/e.
"Somebody put something in his mouth, My zipper stuck!-martin."Why are you guys even sweating what this Geico caveman is saying? So easy a therapist can do lol. Seriously games are bigger than the movie industry, yet some how they aren't art cause you interact with them right.???? So
He says video games can't be art because they are subject to change, and that there isn't one artist but many. So I quote myself... "So?". So what if there are many artists? That means it, the game, is STILL art. Besides, the developer is STILL the artist because he actually made the several storylines (IF there were even several storylines).
If I argue that there is a single storyline, following a linear path, he will argue that there's still freedom for us to interact with the characters in a game. So I say again: So? When one reads a book... hell, when everyone reads a book, our imagination has the same freedom as the one that a game gives us, if not more. Everyone imagines a storyline in a different way.
Music, which is art, gives us the freedom to interact with it, whether we dance however we want, or imagine what we want, or simply listen. Even in movies, which are the art medium which leave the least to our imagination (excluding video games) leave some of our stuff to our imagination. It sometimes beg the questions "...what happened in between?". You can say the same about any other art form.
His argument stems from the fact that games don't make you reach a single conclusion; but not only can games do that, other art mediums can make you reach different conclusions than those of others. For a reason Shakespeare and other authors, Da Vinci and other painters, Italian cinema, and so on are still discussed by intellectuals in universities as if there was much new to add or to interpret, despite the fact that, according to Roger Ebert, you can only reach a single conclusion.
Besides, Roger Ebert also says, more or less, "...you can't only live with good art, you have to also live with good garbage, otherwise you won't enjoy cinema...". He alludes to Spiderman 2 and other highly successful movie flicks by saying that. Assuming his position holds true (that not every instance of every form of expression is art), then why is it so hard for him to see in video games that some are "good art", and others are "great trash"? You know, Okami versus Burnout, Final Fantasy versus Madden, Metal Gear Solid versus Splinter Cell, Bioshock versus Halo (Sorry fanboys, had to say it; admit it's overhyped).
The truth is, Roger Ebert is threatened by the raise of video games, whether he knows it or not, because he's just a movie critic. Many of generations prior to ours don't want to admit games are an art form too, a form of expression. And why do it? Since they don't like them and don't really care because they've never tried, they don't think they are affected by secluding video games as "child's play".
To throw the guy a bone though, video games as a medium do have to grow up or mature. After all, it took a long time for several technologies and art forms to evolve, develop, mature and even converge. Photography, cinema, radio, television, video recording, audio recording, sculpture, paintings... these had to evolve. IT's just that they took a lot longer to evolve and weren't the huge hits video games have been.
Video games have evolved fast, especially in the technology front; unfortunately their acceptance hasn't, in part thanks to dumb ass politicians that have never touched a video game before and so seek to ban them at every oportunity they get (but never praise video games for any single good thing they might give to our society). That has hindered its maturity, and so it hasn't reached the themes treated in every other art form to be truly accepted. That, and of course, the fact that it has been slowly crawling out of geek culture to the masses. I do hope in the end everyone is a gamer, and I think it'll only be a matter of time to put an end to the fossiles ideal of "SAY NO TO VIDEO GAMES".
I hate this guy. Jack Thompson is a idiot and doesnt even think about but this is the man (A famous and respected movie critic)who's stopping the games from being considered true art.
He must be blind for not seeing art in Okami, MGS and Final Fantasy.
This isn't news, it's an opinion of a MOVIE critic. I don't see why 3 people approve this crap
Video games are no different from movies, only more interactive... this fr00b needs to get a clue
His job is at stake(this guy is a movie Critic NOT a game Critic)Games like MGS and FF are games that attract a ceratin amount of people.Although most games engenders hate and violence.Ebert is not in to blood and gore.FF has no blood but it still has violence.and MGS implements politicks.
this is not news.